Peter Rhodes on broken phones, cheap imports and our powerlessness in a high-tech world
I referred yesterday to plans to redesign British banknotes. The only change I'd make is to make them out of something other than the springy plastic currently in use. They seem to have a life of their own. Shove a few fivers into your purse or wallet and they seem hell-bent on escaping. Money does not only talk; it also wriggles.
What makes our hi-tech world so frustrating? Probably the sheer powerlessness when things go wrong. A few days ago, still in credit and with no warning, my old mobile phone – a dumbphone, not a smartphone – stopped working with the message “Emergency calls only.” Customer services said the reason was that I had not used the phone for over a month. Yet according to online guidance, the “inactivity period” allowed is six months. I took it up with the 02 chat service, which told me: “We're really sorry but the team you need is not available via live chat. Please call 4445 from your mobile.” So I dialled the number and (as you've probably guessed) the phone said: “Emergency calls only.” And round and round we go...
The veteran news reader Jan Leeming has taken today's anchors to task for mispronouncing simple words such as “mischievious” instead of “mischievous". But there was a time when Ms Leeming herself was called out. In the 1980s BBC comedy series Not the Nine O'Clock News, Pamela Stephenson did a merciless impression of Leeming over-Africanising a dispatch on bush war in an African state. Gayrrillahs in Zeembahbwe, as I seem to recall.
